Features

Calendar integration is here. Sync your RaceHQ tasks and milestones with your everyday calendar apps such as Gooogle Calendar, iCal, Outlook, iPhone, and more. With calendar integration, you can keep track of all your dates in one place so that nothing slips through the cracks. Getting started is easy and only takes a few minutes. GET SET UP NOW →

Figuring out how you’re going to ‘pull it off’ for one event is a challenge in itself, but figuring out how you’re going to pull off multiple events in one year can be daunting. But, what about going from five events to sixteen events in one year? Such is the case for one of our customers that I had the opportunity to meet with recently.

As we met for a couple of days as part of their 2013 planning meetings, I could feel their pain. With the rapid expansion and the ever-increasing competitive landscape of our industry, it is becoming commonplace to go from one event to multiple events almost overnight. I think many forget that just one event – regardless of size – can be all-consuming let alone multiple events.

So, how do you go from five events to sixteen events in one year? The answer is: very carefully. Make one big mistake – or even over-promise and under-deliver – and your event series (and quite possibly your personal reputation as a competent event manager) could be scarred for life. Before you even contemplate expanding your current event portfolio, it is paramount you first establish standard operating procedures with the event(s) you have.

Standard operating procedures are simply your way of doing things, your formula for success, or your step-by-step ‘instruction manual’ for producing your totally amazing event. This is also what is commonly referred to as your ‘workflow’. It’s everything that needs to get done, when it needs to get done, and by whom it gets done. But knowing your workflow is not enough if it’s all stuck in your head. It’s imperative you document your workflow as part of your knowledge management (aka ‘hit by a bus’ safeguard) and to create a replicable process.

Once you have documented your workflow, then it becomes abundantly easier to add more events to your portfolio. You can now replicate your plan multiple times for your other events without having to ‘recreate the wheel’ from event-to-event or year-to-year. With each passing event, your plan becomes more-and-more refined thereby also increasing your ability to more easily scale your event business.

To assist you in this process (and to save you countless hours!), we are excited to introduce Race Templates into our software. Whether you’re an experienced Race Director or a first-time event manager, our Race Templates can get you started. Simply select, clone, and modify one of our templates to create your standard template with appropriate dates. Then, clone your standard template multiple times for your other events. The system will automatically backfill dates according to your new race date for all of your events…and voilà!!! You are now ready to execute against a well-detailed plan for all of your events.

We hope you will take advantage of this new feature. Please let us know if we can help.